Posts by AnneB

IMO, everything is interesting the first time through; it's only after the umpteenth repition that it gets boring. When I was new to JW's/WT publications I read not only the current literature, but started reading "backward" through the old publications. The material prior to the 1960's did seem more interesting, more in depth, and better written. The language was always stilted, though, as if using out-of-fashion vocabulary lent more weight to the message. It wasn't in-talk, exactly, it seemed to me that WT was trying to hold on to old manners that existed more in fictional situations than in real life at any point. Looking back, it seems to me that WT tried to project an air of refinement, as though JW's were of the upper class and for that reason ought to be listened to. (And here's me ending a sentence with a preposition! No wonder I'm not a JW today!)

Long about 1991, WT mag had an article showing the number of JW's ten or twelve years earlier and the number "today". It was something like 12:1. The article went on to state that since people were coming in so fast that they were bringing in worldly habits and influences that weren't present when there was "more time" to study with them, hence the WT was taking a more elementary approach in their articles and even repeating information.

Dumb and boring is what happened when they lowered admission standards so that more could be saved.

44

Diane Sawyer interviews Jaycee Dugard 7/10/11, ABC 2-hr. Special, 9PM EST: Jaycee was kidnapped by Garridos, supposedly one-time JWs

by AndersonsInfo in

preview: http://abcnews.go.com/us/jaycee_dugard .

diane interviews jaycee.

chris como tracks the police investigation.. authorites called at garrido home 60 times and didn't find jaycee in back yard..

AnneB

As I said, someone else will have to research and find the quotes, I don't have WT literature any more. It could have been in the KM, the WT, it could have been in letter form (BOE letters) but I doubt that. It wasn't just some local elder's opinion, it was "from Bethel" as they used to say. At least one of the mentions came with the requisite scary story, something about unscrupulous prisoners knowing that putting on the pretense of reform might lessen their prison time, another one came with the warning that prisoners would feign love for a sister who, in her innocence, would fall in love with the prisoner, leading to all sorts of complications because it was all fake.

If you have a good memory for dates, the first mention that I can remember was around the time the Lloyd Barry - Japanese Prisoner who became a brother story was circulating on cassette tape.

Somebody else will have to take it from here, that's all I remember.

44

Diane Sawyer interviews Jaycee Dugard 7/10/11, ABC 2-hr. Special, 9PM EST: Jaycee was kidnapped by Garridos, supposedly one-time JWs

by AndersonsInfo in

preview: http://abcnews.go.com/us/jaycee_dugard .

diane interviews jaycee.

chris como tracks the police investigation.. authorites called at garrido home 60 times and didn't find jaycee in back yard..

AnneB

As far as Nancy Garrido preaching in prison or studying with someone in prison, WTBTS has written against that many times. Someone else can look up the exact quotes, but WT has said for years not to write to strangers who are imprisoned even to witness to them, and not to take on Bible studies with prisoners. Apparently only certain persons (elders?) are assigned to do prison work. It's been that way since the late 70's or early 80's, plenty of time for Nancy Garrido to know of the policy.

38

June 15th WT ( again ) WT Society Bashes College & Earning a Living

by flipper in

jw
friends

sorry for the redundancy of this being the 3rd article out of this magazine i've made a thread on- but i felt it was important to share these quotes from the aricle titled " make your way successful - how ?

" i think you'll see the extreme dissing of higher education here and guilt tactics used to discourage jw members from getting a college education or earning a decent living.. under the subheading " higher education " ?

it states, " a christian has a scriptural obligation to care for his family, and that includes providing for their material needs.

AnneB

Is it coincidence that their college-bashing issue comes out at graduation time and their begging issue comes out near Christmas?

19

Spear-chucker me?

by AK - Jeff in

no racial slur here.

literal!.

about 20 minutes ago, while working in the yard, the banny rooster who is always threatening me and others [we have several free-range chickens not a farm], decided to approach and feign a flogging.

AnneB

The chicken was demonized so Gawd guided your hand. Did you happen to yell anything about Gideon's sword whilst chucking?

20

Linguistics misunderstanding - please help.

by hotspur in

jw
friends

maybe it's a "common people separated by a common language" thing but i really don't get this.. .

many times i see somebody posting about something that irks them and they say "i could care less.

" but they use it in such a way as to infer they're not really bothered by it all.. .

AnneB

I was raised to be a grammar Nazi, so I thought I had it all sewn up when I started into a Master's in Linguistics. Hmmph!!! The first lesson was on the difference between Prescriptivism and Descriptivism. The instructor explained that Prescriptivists tell people how to speak their own language while Descriptivists accept language the way it is spoken by a group of individuals. What??? No more standards? Nope, none. Whatever you write or say is OK.

73

How I Know The Assembly Parts Are Made Up

by lovelylil in

jw
friends

we had a co looking for a certain experience for an assembly part coming up and the elders in my hall at the time sent him to see me, since i usually had good experiences out in field service.. anyway, after speaking with the co, i was sorry to inform him that i did not have an experience that suited the type he needed.

he told me that was o.k.

because he could use me anyway for another part.

AnneB

True story: a PO, let's say his name was Vicari ('cause it was), was told to put together the speakers and experiences for a Circuit Assembly. When the day came just about every speaker or person giving a demonstration or experience was a Vicari, or married to one. Come on, in a major US city a PO couldn't find anyone but his own relatives to take the parts???

Same Assembly: The talk was aimed at teens, telling them not to go to the Prom. Another Vicari got up there to give her experience, how she turned down an invitation and didn't go to the prom. The teens from that congregation were seething and at lunchtime I asked a couple of them why. As it happened, they all knew she had been to the prom the previous weekend and was up there lying through her teeth!

27

Such disrespect- Someone desecrated a WT at the laundromat

by keyser soze in

jw
friends

just in case you're wondering what happens to the magazines after they're left at laundromats..... it was ripped apart, with pages scattered all over the floor.

evidently, someone didn't like what they read..

AnneB

Does anyone else remember the days when laudromat owners complained to Watchtower about magazines being left behind? It seems the paper WT and Awake! were printed on worked just fine in the dollar changers and owners were losing a lot of money!